Looks like someone should be demoted from Supernanny to RatherMediocrenanny.
A mother who enlisted the services of TV’s Supernanny to control her unruly sons was left homeless yesterday after one of them apparently set the house ablaze.
Channel 4 childcare guru Jo Frost spent two weeks with the Young family, advising them to use rewards to encourage good behaviour and make the five boys sit on ‘naughty stools’ when they misbehaved.
However her strict influence failed to last long enough to prevent the youngest, three-year-old Joel, being blamed for starting a blaze in the living room, apparently with a kitchen cooker lighter.
His mother Susan, who is understood to have separated from her husband Paul over the summer, tried to put out the flames but was forced back by the smoke.
No one was injured but Mrs Young, 40, was given oxygen after inhaling fumes. Firemen spent 30 minutes dousing the flames but the interior of the house was covered in a thick, black layer of soot leaving it uninhabitable.
The family are now understood to be staying in a hotel pending repairs to the four-bedroom semi in Witham, Essex, which was up for sale at £215,000.
A spokesman for Essex Fire Service said: “Someone is certainly going to be sitting on the naughty step for quite some time.”
